"In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”"
"Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented."
"But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”"
" Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”"
" The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
“Today salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost””
Re: "Luke 19:1-10"
ReplyDeleteIt's Luke 3: 1-10, fyi. But Luke 19 is also very informative to the topic and well worth re-reading. But Luke 1 - 7, and really, all of it, is quite good and worth many readings.
Of course, Luke 1-5 are describing the circumstances leading up to the births of Jesus and John the Baptist, those delightful, eccentric cousins! I'd note that theologians from John Wesley through Ched Myers and others emphasize the need to read the book of Luke through an economic lens if you're going to best understand it. That, and the lens of the power struggle between the Gospel of Jesus' good news for the poor and marginalized on one hand and the bad news of the Pharisees and their graceless legalism.
https://oikonomianetwork.org/2016/05/teaching-history-john-wesley-and-economics/
As a starting point. More...
As I copy/pasted that, I assumed that the reference was correct.
DeleteAs to your attempt to make this something else, whatever.
Craig:
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but it seems like there is a fair amount of evidence that Jesus wasn't limiting His work only or primarily to the materially poor.
Where?
First of all, I'm not saying that Jesus' good news was ONLY for the materially poor. I AM saying Jesus himself began and led with a good news that BEGAN with the poor and marginalized. THAT was Jesus' starting point and to best understand Jesus (especially as revealed in Luke's writings), we need to get a handle on that aspect of the Good News of Jesus' Realm of God, realm of welcome to the poor and marginalized.
So, do the gospel writers say that Jesus' good news was ONLY for the poor?
Nope. Objectively not. Jesus literally welcomed the rich to abandon the trappings of their wealth and come, join Jesus' poor and marginalized an allied followers.
But, Is there "a fair amount of evidence that Jesus wasn't limiting His work ... primarily to the materially poor," do you imagine?
Where is the evidence for this? That he doesn't always mention the poor and marginalized when he's speaking of this good news to the poor and marginalized? That isn't a fair amount of evidence, is it?
If a teacher makes clear early on in a class that they will be primarily dealing with questions of math, and then sometimes introduces story questions ("if a train is traveling 50mph...") or historic allusions, does that mean he's no longer speaking primarily of math? OR is are they just being well-rounded to give a more full understanding?
There may or may not be evidence that Jesus' gospel wasn't "primarily" to the poor, but the passage you cited wasn't it.
Now, about that passage...
Where? You mean other than multiple examples from before your pet proof text? Wouldn’t the earliest statements of His purpose carry a great deal of weight, or just the one you chose to base your opinion on.
DeleteSo you know that Jesus and John were really talking about the poor because you cherry picked a later scripture and applied it retroactively.
1. Passages, not passage.
2. If the earliest statements of purpose are the most important, why would you place later statements above the earliest.
Actually, I've already made a mistake. You quoted verses from throughout the Gospels, it appears, and the final line made me think you were suggesting it was from Luke 19, but only a portion of it came from Luke 19.
ReplyDeleteMy fault. Usually, the last line quoted in citing verses is the citation of where those verses came from and I just didn't follow that wasn't the case here.
So, your passages begin with John's story beginning in Matthew 3 (not Luke's version found in Luke 3, as I noted), where John is deeply involved in a struggle with the graceless, legalistic Pharisees.
In LUKE's account of the same story, Luke fills in some blanks. Where John the Baptist rebukes the Pharisees/Sadducees, telling them to "“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."...
Luke adds more detail, saying (when people asked what to do/how to "produce good fruit"),
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,”
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
In other words, there is a clear economic justice, simple living, embrace and defense of the poor and marginalized making clear what repentance looks like.
And this clarity from JB follows the song of Mary in the chapters before, where she thanked God for...
God has brought down rulers…
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things…
but has sent the rich away empty.
The Gospel of Jesus does indeed begin with a good deal of clarity about Jesus being on the side of the poor and marginalized and against the rich oppressors. And that's even BEFORE Jesus begins his ministry by saying he'd come to preach good news to the poor...
More...
Well, Dan has decided that he’ll be hijacking this thread to spew his hunches and eisegesus.
ReplyDeleteYour collection of clipped out passages ends with the story of Zaccheus found in Luke 19. But let's look at that story...
ReplyDeleteWe have a rich oppressor, someone who has gotten rich off of abusing the poor and marginalized. When he DOES "find Jesus" and gets saved, what does he do? He starts paying back all of the people he has oppressed over the years, abundantly so. And WITH that repentance, what does Jesus say? That salvation had come to Zaccheus' house because God had come to seek and save the lost... BUT we can't lose sight of the message to repent, produce fruit in accordance with that repentance, stop abusing/cheating/oppressing the poor and marginalized.
THAT IS Good news to the poor and oppressed, indeed. Was it excluding the wealthy and oppressors? NO! IT was welcoming them to join IN with the poor, to join ALONGSIDE the poor, to join on BEHALF of the poor. All are welcome, but it begins with the poor and marginalized. The rich and oppressive are welcomed in to, AS they embrace grace and repent of abusing the poor and marginalized.
Failing to read these passages through the economic lens that is clearly there - SEEING that Jesus' good news BEGINS with the poor and marginalized - is inviting one to miss the point entirely.
Oh, and your John the Baptist quotes ripped from context? Remember that when the rich and powerful oppressors (both the Pharisees/religious oppressors AND the gov't oppressors) had finally arrested JB and he was soon to face the injustice of capital punishment, and John sent followers to ask Jesus if he was "the one..."? What did Jesus say?
"Tell him the sick are healed. Tell him good news is preached to the poor."
Failing to read these passages through the economic lens that is clearly there is inviting one to miss the point entirely.
Amen, dear man?
Yes, however you can't ignore the fact that Jesus response to Zaccheus repentance (which happened before he repaid those he'd defrauded) was to restate that Zaccheus was again a "son of Abraham" (ie back in good standing as a Jew) then He clearly states His purpose "to seek and save the lost". Jesus doesn't even comment on the financial windfall for people, He references the repentance and salvation of Zaccheus and his family.
DeleteYes, the financial windfall was "good news" to those who were repaid, but nowhere in the text does it even HINT that Jesus purpose was to get people paid back.
Zaccheus repented of his sin, and then engaged in correcting his wrongs because he'd repented and been saved. Jesus Good News BEGINS with Zaccheus repenting, not with him doing a "good work". But why let a little thing like chronology get in your way.
Yes, I do "fail to read passages through your economic lens", in much the same way I fail to read passages through a professional football lens.
My John quotes weren't ripped from context, the context is always available to anyone with Bible Gateway.
Make up your mind, if the earliest texts are the ones that establish direction and intent, then retroactively imposing later passages on the earliest dismantles your own argument.
I do so love it when you make up a term, drop it into a comment and simply assume that some relatively modern (Wesley) human invention must be applied in the way you apply it. FYI, Wesley (like any of the other protestant theologians) was not perfect. Why you choose this relatively late human invention to cling to seems bizarre at best. As is decreeing that there is only one way to read scripture.
On a related point, by the time Jesus appeared on the scene the Jewish understanding of sin and it's effects had shifted from a weight or burden early in the Torah, to language of debt/debtor as their economy moved towards a currency basis. So, one could argue that using your economic lens makes the debt/debtor/payment language seem a lot more accurate.
Craig:
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t the earliest statements of His purpose carry a great deal of weight...
So you know that Jesus and John were really talking about the poor because you cherry picked a later scripture
I'm not sure what "later Scripture" you're speaking of. If the FIRST passages to come help make things clear, then LUKE 1 is the first passage, which includes Mary's magnificat before Jesus was even born, where she is singing that Jesus' coming meant that...
God has brought down rulers…
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things…
but has sent the rich away empty.
Good news for the poor and marginalized, indeed. JUST AS Jesus said as he began his ministry.
Well, Mary isn't Jesus, so I'm not sure how what someone else says (except the angel), who tells us this,
Delete" But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”"
So the very FIRST thing we learn about Jesus in Luke is that Mary is to name Him Jesus. In Hebrew the name Jesus (Yehsua) actually has a specific meaning. It means "YHWH is salvation or saves". In Matthew we find this nugget.
""You shall call his name Jesus [Yeshua], for he will save his people from their sins."
Again, before Mary's song, before the scene in the synagogue, before He was born, and at the very beginning of His public ministry, the language describing Him and His purpose focuses on salvation, repentance, and the what happens later.
One problem with your obsession with Luke is that Luke is written to a different audience that Matthew or Mark, it's written to non Jews who are not as likely to pick up on the Hebrew name meaning or the prophecy aspects because they don't have the background that the Jewish audience of Matthew or Mark would have had.
Not to diminish Luke in any way, just to point out that Luke has an agenda and taking Luke alone leaves out context.
So, we now have the FIRST references to Jesus, His name and his ministry purpose.
As noted, the later Luke passage I posted does contradict or offer a counterpoint to your hunches about Luke.
Craig asked:
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t the earliest statements of His purpose carry a great deal of weight, or just the one you chose to base your opinion on.
All of them help provide context to the text and understanding of the meaning. Not all of them are equally clear. Your group of texts which appear to be haphazardly pulled together (that's not a criticism, just a note) are a jumble of verses not always in order, so I'm suggesting looking at the source quotes, not this particular frankensteinian assemblage of words.
But having said that, at least some of them appear to be either from Mark 1 or Matthew 3. Mark 1 begins (verse 1) by saying...
"The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah."
Then fairly quickly jumps into John the Baptist's story, mid-sermon, practically, where Mark says of John:
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,
preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
That's it. No detail, not much context. Just, Here's Johnny, he's preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
Is THAT, then, the "good news..."? And what WAS that sin which was in need of forgiveness?
It doesn't say in that passage. As I'm sure you know, Mark is a terse, brief Gospel book, often without a lot of detail. BUT, by having the advantage of four gospel books, we can jump over to Luke 3 and see John explaining that question precisely. "What shall we do?" the people asked.
John clarifies, then...
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,”
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
Stop abusing the poor and stop oppressing. AS WE SEE throughout Israel's history in the OT and in the stories of the Prophets. It's not a vague "sin in general," nor a concern with some "inherited sin nature." It's the specific oppression of the poor and marginalized AND the oppression of the rich and powerful who get trapped up in those systems of wealth and oppression.
All of that to say, it IS good to look at all the texts, including the first texts that appear chronologically. And it is good to read them together to reach deeper and more complete understanding.
"Repent of sin." is one vague but helpful level.
Stop cheating the poor, stop abusing your office, share your stuff with those who need it... That is a deeper, more complete level. And then, we read on and on and on. What a blessing these wondrous texts are! What a wonderful Gospel! (the one that Jesus actually taught, not the human traditions later attributed to Jesus that Jesus didn't teach.)
With the exception of the final Luke verse, they are all from the very earliest mentions of Jesus and His ministry. Earlier in the thread, with your teacher analogy, you were quite clear that what comes early in the course sets the tone for what comes later. Now, you backpedal and throw out some vague nonsense about "it's all context". I get it that applying your earlier analogy is now more of a problem than you thought.
DeleteI guess that you cold jump over the inconvenient stuff about John being the fulfillment of prophecy and the whole "lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" to get right to your eisegesus if you want.
FYI, Mark may be too terse and brief for you, yet it is regarded as the first of the 4 gospels and both Matthew and Luke pulled from Mark. Sorry it doesn't give you what you want.
What you seem to be doing is confusing Jesus telling individual people what sins they need to repent of with some sort of blanket imperative about "the poor" being the focus of the gospel. He's literally telling people not to be corrupt in their jobs. Strangely enough, He doesn't tall the tax collectors to quit collecting taxes, nor the Roman soldiers to leave the army. Instead He tells them to do their jobs without abusing their positions. In other words, repent. The problem with your eisegesus is that it ignores the fact that the tax collectors and soldiers could and did abuse everyone regardless of their economic status.
Only you would find "repent" vague.
What a bizarre ending, I'm literally quoting the angel, John and Jesus without adding anything. While you've added some strange human tradition from hundreds of years later and demand the everyone agree with your human tradition.